[HN Gopher] Heathrow tells airlines to stop selling additional f...
___________________________________________________________________
Heathrow tells airlines to stop selling additional flights until
September
Author : edward
Score : 154 points
Date : 2022-07-12 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.headforpoints.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.headforpoints.com)
| FerretFred wrote:
| Good luck with that! I just spent an evening watching a
| commercial TV channel (in UK) and every other commercial was for
| booking your holiday by air. Deserted beaches, only ones at the
| pool, no restaurant queues.. wonderful! If you can get a flight.
| Yes, I realise buying ad slots are bought well in advance, but
| there's something dishonest about this.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Do people mostly vacation abroad from the UK?
| sfmike wrote:
| why September 11th? This is the stuff conspiracies are written
| from.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yeah it does seem like a weird and stupid date to pick.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| RTFA: Kaye's solution is to cap Heathrow passenger numbers at
| 100,000 per day for the Summer period, which they are
| specifying as ending on 11th September.
| decremental wrote:
| It's surprising that no one in the room was like yeaaahh
| let's push the date up a bit. It's a great meme though.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| i suspect they're more worried about maximizing revenue and
| less concerned about QAnon believers drumming up some
| stupid shit.
| decremental wrote:
| I don't know what QAnon is but I was thinking more along
| the lines of it just being in poor taste.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It's a Sunday. That week ends there. It seems best to
| just be neutral about it and just use it as a date.
| [deleted]
| karagenit wrote:
| I think it's just 60 days from when they decided to start
| implementing the policy (july 12)
| jb12 wrote:
| Because that date doesn't actually have a whole lot of
| significance outside of the USA?
| iso1631 wrote:
| It's been over 20 years.
|
| The London bombings on July 7th 2005 (or 7/7 as they were
| known) were a big thing in the UK obviously.
|
| Not to Sky Sports though, who posted on July 7th
|
| "In honour of 7/7, who's the first player you think of"
|
| To really grasp dates like 9/11 or 7/7 you'd have to have
| been at least say 10 years old at the time. The 20 year old
| intern posting the sky sports tweet would have been 3 at the
| time and wouldn't associate the date. People under the age of
| 30 wouldn't remember 9/11 like the rest of the world did, and
| it did have a massive affect on the whole world - not least
| because of the response to it (unlike say March 11th 2004 in
| Madrid)
| mabbo wrote:
| I don't get why this is difficult: charge the airlines more
| money. They will charge the passengers more money.
|
| Either there will then be fewer flights and passengers, and the
| existing staff count can handle it, or there will be the same
| number of flights and enough money to hire more staff to handle
| it.
|
| This is how a free market economy works, right?
| klyrs wrote:
| Airlines are taking people's money and not delivering on
| flights. I'm not sure that giving them an excuse to rake even
| greater profits is going to help the situation.
| lozenge wrote:
| They just raised it from PS22 to PS30 per passenger. The
| airport wanted to raise it higher but the government refused.
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/16/passengers-f...
|
| The government has clear reasons for interfering: it's nearly a
| monopoly due to other airports not having enough capacity, and
| the same companies run multiple airports. Lower flight prices
| encourage international tourism which is a positive externality
| that the airport doesn't benefit from. Obviously, the
| government also controls flight capacity by not approving new
| runways, setting noise hours, etc.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Airports can't unilaterally raise the fees, because there are
| existing contracts between them and airlines. The fees will
| eventually rise to a stable level, but that could take months
| or even years.
|
| That's also part of free markets. Sometimes you simply fail,
| because you took risks and the risks materialized.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| People really don't like price hikes. Even a minor increase in
| fares could cause a disproportionately large loss of customers.
|
| Edit: though for their part, the airline companies have been
| warning that prices are going up for a few months now.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Wait a here buddy, free market is suppose to work for
| companies, not for employees, that would be communism. /s
| nick_ wrote:
| Free market economy is a misnomer that seems to actually mean:
| don't tax us when things are going well, but spend taxes on us
| when they're not.
| topkai22 wrote:
| That assumes a perfect, friction less economy. I'm going to
| make some assumptions here, but to hire a baggage handler
| you'll have to 1) pass a background check 2) Receive training
| on airport safety, 3) be trained on how to load and balance
| bags. That will likely to take 2-4 weeks, minimum.
|
| Additionally, Heathrow slots are already sold, they likely
| can't change the price for the next 2 months anyways.
|
| Finally, labor is a bit different then goods- if you raise the
| marginal cost of an orange all the oranges you've already
| bought don't suddenly start costing you more. If raise the wage
| to attract more workers you'll generally have to raise the
| wages of existing workers as well to retain them. This is a
| really bad situation if you have a lot of fixed price orders on
| the books (as Heathrow likely does with airlines). If you
| overshoot pay and hiring to fix a short term issue you can end
| up with a worse problem long term.
|
| Raising prices and pay solves the shortage in the long term,
| but in the short term it won't fix the problem, so the 2 month
| cap makes sense.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Weeks? In Canada, anecdotally, it can take up to 9 months for
| them to clear the background checks, as the background
| checking offices are also dealing with high turnover.
| tpmx wrote:
| "a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500 to
| 100,000"
|
| Doesn't seem that dramatic?
| throwaway67743 wrote:
| clickbait title, in reality all they have asked is for the
| airlines to reduce the passengers by about 4000
| tpmx wrote:
| HN needs to work on this, IMO. It works way too well here.
|
| Should I flag this post? Feels a bit over the top. At the
| same time I can't downvote it. _shrug_
| ziddoap wrote:
| How is every single title considered clickbait? I'm at the
| point I don't even know what clickbait is anymore. Every HN
| thread I open, someone is saying the title is clickbait, even
| when the title is literally what is happening.
|
| To me, clickbait is along the lines of "10 ways to lose
| 100lbs in 1 hour!" and it's an article about throwing out two
| 50lb weights. Or otherwise where the title is _clearly_ not
| representative of the article itself.
|
| But here we have...
|
| > _Effectively immediately, Heathrow has requested:
|
| -the closure for sale of all flights departing from the
| airport until 11th September
|
| - a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500 to
| 100,000_
|
| That seems to match the title exactly? Which part is
| clickbait? Or what has changed in the definition of clickbait
| that I'm too out of touch to have learned?
| idunno246 wrote:
| to me the title sounds like its cancel all flights, like
| its closing. but that doesnt really make sense, it's just
| phrased badly. its borderline clickbait, it sounds really
| bad(worse than it is), and the only way to understand what
| the title means is read the article. 'any more seats' - i
| think a 'more' in there would make the title ok
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > to me the title sounds like its cancel all flights,
| like its closing
|
| I am genuinely perplexed as to how someone could get that
| from this title.
| mccorrinall wrote:
| While it might not be clickbait it is definitely
| sensationalizing.
|
| That usually leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the
| reader.
| structural wrote:
| It's certainly not clickbait. If I wanted to fly to
| London for a meeting in 6 weeks and then fly home, I can
| no longer do so via Heathrow. It's not like I can just
| get an earlier or later flight, travel a day earlier,
| whatever. It's just not an option. That's a rather big
| deal.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Which part of the title is sensationalized?
|
| Because the title is almost a word for word copy of the
| actual announcement, straight from the CEOs mouth.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| One form of clickbait is to take mundane processes that
| the general public is not aware of, and to publicize them
| as if they are news.
|
| Is this unprecedented at Heathrow, or normal course of
| action? Will the average Heathrow traveler or prospective
| traveler a face any consequence anything from this news?
|
| Some of the items do seem like they would impact
| travelers and potential travelers, so I would not
| classify it as clickbait yet. Unless I found out this was
| every summer.
|
| But if this article means that people should avoid
| Heathrow because the experience will be worse than prior
| years, then I would say this is relevant news to share
| with the public.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Capitalized "ANY" is certainly a clickbait trick.
| throwaway67743 wrote:
| The title says _ANY_ tickets, which won 't actually the
| case since the aim is a reduction in passengers and many
| flights won't be fully booked anyway
|
| but the "clickbait" bit is the dramatic title, weak
| definition of perhaps, but its still excessive
|
| example of level reporting: https://news.sky.com/story/new-
| summer-holiday-threat-as-heat...
| maest wrote:
| The Sky article is actually worse quality. The original
| article quotes the full CEO statement, which is what I
| care about.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The letter says " _so we are asking our airline partners
| to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on
| passengers._ " I do read this as selling any ticket,
| which is the title of the article.
| throwaway67743 wrote:
| Asks, not tells them to stop (and most airlines are still
| selling tickets, likely because many people that would be
| traveling now won't be so there will be spare capacity) -
| the problem is the article a) is a bit dramatic and
| misleading with the title, and b) isn't of particularly
| high quality anyway
| cm2187 wrote:
| Again the article covers that. The airport cannot enforce
| the rule but if the airlines do not play ball (and I
| suspect the airport has visibility on ticket sales), it
| can cancel flights wholesale.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Your article says the same thing as the one you call
| clickbait. They are already over the target cap, and they
| are asking for no additional ticket sales as a means of
| preventing going further over the cap, and indicating
| that if the numbers sold get worse, they will be forced
| to impose flight cancellations and may prohibit
| rebookings for passengers on any cancelled flights since
| such rebookings would defeat the purpose of reducing
| passengers.
| throwaway67743 wrote:
| Yes, but it does it without the tabloid caps, Sky are by
| no means innocent re this type of thing of course
| cm2187 wrote:
| But no more ticket sale is a big deal I think. Particularly
| business travelers.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, they've asked them to stop selling tickets for the time
| period in question because they are already 1500
| passengers/day over the cap, and are expected to be 4000 over
| if sales continue. They are also threatening to cancel
| flights (and not allowing rebookings of those whose flights
| are cancelled) if necessary to maintain the cap.
| madrox wrote:
| That's per day, so 91,500 fewer seats this summer...most of
| which are already spoken for, it sounds like.
| The-Bus wrote:
| The article I read asked airlines to not sell additional
| seats, meaning to go off on the amount of sold seats they
| already have.
| tpmx wrote:
| Yes, 1.48% of a very large number is still a large number.
| chucksta wrote:
| The last two words in that sentence are pretty important "PER
| DAY"
|
| >"Kaye's solution is to cap Heathrow passenger numbers at
| 100,000 per day for the Summer period" ... "the closure for
| sale of all flights departing from the airport until 11th
| September a reduction in the current passenger cap from 101,500
| to 100,000"
|
| meaning every day until 9/11 1.5k people aren't getting a seat
| they paid for
| cr1895 wrote:
| It still doesn't sound that extreme, tbh. I'm not sure how
| Heathrow compares to Schiphol but KLM alone is scrapping on
| the order of 7,000 seats _per day_. And that's one
| (admittedly major) airline.
|
| https://nos.nl/artikel/2433371-klm-schrapt-7000-stoelen-
| per-...
| whack wrote:
| > _This would be fine, except that airlines have already sold
| an avereage of 101,500 tickets per day and seats are still on
| sale._
|
| My understanding is that based on existing sales alone, there
| are already 101,500 passengers/day. And in order to get
| 100,000, they have asked airlines to not sell any more tickets
| at all.
|
| If you imagine that airlines were previously planning to sell a
| further 20,000 tickets per day, and they cut that down to 0-100
| per day, that's a huge drop that is sure to impact anyone
| looking to buy tickets at this time.
| smileysteve wrote:
| And stop selling means to spend more money per passenger on
| fuel or re-coordinate the flights
| drothlis wrote:
| That "cap" wasn't a previous policy. It's the amount of tickets
| already sold!
| jmyeet wrote:
| Just your daily reminder that there are no "chronic staff
| shortages". There are only "below market wages".
|
| Second, if you're a baggage handler your only wary to improve
| your conditions of through labor organization.
| gsnedders wrote:
| > Just your daily reminder that there are no "chronic staff
| shortages". There are only "below market wages".
|
| To be fair to the airport, it's not just pay: it's also waiting
| for enhanced background checks to complete, for staff to be
| trained, increased numbers of staff off sick, etc. etc.
|
| The vast majority of the aviation industry even at the early of
| 2022 wasn't expecting the resurgence in passengers numbers that
| has been seen.
| harvey9 wrote:
| The industry laid off lots of staff in the pandemic. Seems a
| lot of those staff are not returning - if they were then
| training and background checks would be faster.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| One big issue is self-inflicted: Heathrow (maybe all of UK)
| steadfastly refuse to implement one-stop-security, so _everyone_
| transiting goes through x-ray and gets their carryon re-scanned.
| pcurve wrote:
| Don't book flights with layover in London if you have checkin
| luggage.
|
| You WILL lose your luggage and it will take days to get it back!
| DAYS! If you HAVE to, make sure to have enough supplies in your
| carry-on.
| DaviNunes wrote:
| I learned this the hard way. No luggage, airlines blame
| heathrow, and heathrow has no communcation channel, I think my
| only option is break in and try to find it myself. How you
| manage to get yours?
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Throw an airtag in there before you leave and then bluster
| your way through! Shouldn't be that hard if they're all that
| overworked /s
| squidofbits wrote:
| A guy was on Irish radio and he said he bought the cheapest
| outbound ticket he could find. Managed to get to the arrivals
| lounge and find his bag there.
| bogomipz wrote:
| I'm not following this strategy. Did he need to buy an
| outbound ticket to go collect his lost bag?
| kgwgk wrote:
| To get through security and make his way to arrivals from
| within the airport, I guess.
| boulos wrote:
| To get on the other side of security. Presumably this was
| in the international baggage pickup or something.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| The slightly cheaper tactic may be to actually to buy a
| fully refundable fare (usually for thousands) for much
| later in the day, and then cancel it and ask for a full
| refund.
|
| (This is also how airport lounge abuse is done.)
| panda88888 wrote:
| Fully refundable tickets are awesome. My old company had
| a contract where all international business travels to
| customer sites must purchase fully refundable business
| class tickets. I remember someone had to cancel their
| travel just before boarding, and the airline refunded
| everything no questions asked.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| People should consider using Air Tags with checked luggage
| this summer: https://www.cnn.com/cnn-
| underscored/travel/travel-apple-airt...
| april_22 wrote:
| extremly underrated tip! thank you
| nradov wrote:
| Just because you know where your baggage is doesn't mean
| the airline will actually give it to you.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| It can help a ton. There's been reports of people calling
| up an airport and telling an employee exactly where their
| bag is, and then getting it delivered.
|
| Often the biggest impediment to getting lost luggage back
| is finding out where in the airport it actually is.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Or even _which_ airport it 's in.
| paulhodge wrote:
| Yeah we just recovered a lost bag thanks to an Airtag. The
| airline's system thought it was still at the origin city,
| but we knew exactly which terminal it was at, and we just
| went there and asked in person. Never checking any bag
| without an airtag ever again.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Like I dummy, I waited around in line for an hour in
| Costa Rica before remembering to check my tag.
|
| ... Turns out, they move "military looking" (lol,
| pelican) boxes to a separate spot instead of running them
| on the carousel. I'd have had it in minutes if I
| remembered to check the tag first.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Another Pelican Box Luggage Fan!!! I've got a few Pelican
| trunks too (1615s). They are often (but not always)
| treated as "Out of Gauge" at various international
| airports for me and I'm asked "What's inside?" as if they
| are loaded with some sort of weapon. Nope! I just like
| large & durable luggage that can be tied to roof of a cab
| if it doesn't fit in the back
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I have Airs, which are definitely weaker, but light
| enough that I don't mind.
|
| Have considered its a tastier looking target for thieves,
| but esp in Asia they seem to have no idea what it is at
| all.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't often check luggage. United does have a pretty
| good online tracking system you can use these days but I
| always throw an AirTag into checked luggage now and it
| seems like a really good idea.
| sbarre wrote:
| Yeah and if you want some order them now, there's been a
| flood of articles (and comments!) recommending this
| approach, so no doubt they are flying off the metaphorical
| shelves.
|
| I hit up 2 Apple Stores and a few authorized resellers in
| my area and everyone was out of stock. I ordered mine
| online and it still took a few weeks to get it.
| goda90 wrote:
| What should those of us with Android phones do? As far as I
| can tell, you can use an Android phone to locate any random
| airtag nearby, but no way to hunt down your own tag unless
| nearby. Other tag systems won't have the Find My network
| advantage.
| technofiend wrote:
| You don't get as much coverage since far fewer people
| have them but there's always Tile.
| [deleted]
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| I've used airtags when travelling the past month, they are
| amazing. Sometimes I sit down on a nice chair instead of
| crowding around the baggage reclaim belt waiting for it to
| arrive, and my airtag will show when its there
| ipqk wrote:
| BA lost my bag on BOTH ways in my layover at Heathrow last
| week.
| pcurve wrote:
| I don't think I'd want to ever travel after that. How long
| did it take to get yours back?
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| Your point is clear but I do not think there is a need for such
| hyperbole (or for the exclamations).
|
| I could not find a reference reliable enough to quote here, but
| I would be surprised if any major airport loses more than a few
| percent of checked luggage. So you will most likely not lose
| your luggage.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| It's incredibly rare and the fact it happens more at Heathrow
| (anecdotally) should not be a significant factor in your
| booking decision.
| djaychela wrote:
| I've just come back from holiday via Heathrow - having had my
| original flights cancelled by BA at the last minute. The
| experience of getting back through passport control was pretty
| bad - took about an hour, with the usual combination of poor
| queue management, useless e-gates and only 2 passport control
| staff initially on duty to take those who the e-gates failed for
| (which was about 50%, and always happens to me as I have a common
| name so there are always people wanted with my name, according to
| local passport officers).
|
| It certainly wasn't this bad last time I flew via there (pre-
| pandemic, I'm not a regular flier), but something needs to be
| done, for sure.
| cm2187 wrote:
| At what time of the day, day of the week?
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Those e-gates really suck always. What's so hard about reading
| MRZ?
| [deleted]
| zo1 wrote:
| It's split second to read. It's all the other stuff they are
| potentially mandated to do. Checking no fly lists, police
| databases, taking scans of your photo for storage. Having
| crazy expensive SDKs that run "tests" on you passport to
| check that it's according to your country's specific passport
| format and unique fraud checks. Some run UV scans, etc.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Those e-gates really suck always. What's so hard about
| reading MRZ?
|
| Its because its not fully-automated.
|
| If you keep an eye out, you'll spot an officer sitting in a
| booth with a couple of LCD screens.
|
| They are actually touch screens showing a grid of mugshots of
| the people passing through the gates.
|
| Officer needs to tap his finger on your mugshot to open the
| gate.
|
| Hence if its a busy day, or the officer is eating a donut,
| you'll get the sucky delay experience.
|
| Obviously there is little public information available, but
| there is one public document that makes some vague hints
| about what a "Monitoring Officer" does, including a reference
| about requiring being logged into a "Monitoring Terminal".
| See here[1].
|
| [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploa
| ds/...
| iso1631 wrote:
| A decade ago Heathrow had IRIS entry at passport control.
| You had to register, and in theory had to use heathrow a
| lot to get on the list.
|
| It was great, walk in, no need to fish out a passport, 5
| seconds later you walked through, and because it was
| frequent flyers only you didn't have grandma still wearing
| sunglasses, or dropping her passport, or putting her
| boarding card in, etc.
|
| I measured the "e-passport" queue at Paris last time I got
| the train to London. There were 5 gates, on average each
| one took 45 seconds to process someone, the fastest being
| 31 seconds, the slowest over a minute before rejecting them
|
| That's 1 person every 9 seconds, or 400 per hour. The
| hourly train has 900 seats. That simply doesn't work.
| WildGreenLeave wrote:
| This IRIS entry is the same with Privium in Schiphol
| (which, as of this time is not accepting people).
|
| But, what I don't understand, why the hate on the e
| passport gates? I really like them at Schiphol. There are
| usually about 8 of them and in my experience there are
| always more egates open then actual officers. And they
| are on par or faster than an officer.
|
| Could it be more efficient? yes. But, if the alternative
| is an old fashioned officer this is better.
| prvit wrote:
| Protip: Just book VIP to avoid troubles when arriving/departing
| at LHR. https://www.heathrowvip.com/
|
| Same goes for Schiphol https://www.schiphol.nl/en/page/schiphol-
| vip-service/
|
| For relatively little money, the private terminal services offer
| you a very high quality stress-free experience. No need to
| navigate crowded airports or tow your luggage around. They'll
| drive you from a comfortable lounge straight to the plane (and
| vice-versa). For passport control, you just sit in a comfy
| armchair as the border force girl comes to check your documents.
|
| Depending on the airline and airport you depart from, your
| luggage will often get binned separately in order to guarantee a
| super fast delivery to the VIP terminal.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Ah! I took first class from NYC to London as a treat to myself
| once (using a RTW fare). On the flight there Keith Richards was
| sitting a few seats away. Cool guy, gave me shit about it being
| "the wrong time to use the loo" while I was waiting near the
| end of the flight. After we landed, he got off before everyone
| and got into a black car like this - I had always wondered how
| one goes and does that.
|
| > They'll drive you from a comfortable lounge straight to the
| plane (and vice-versa). For passport control, you just sit in a
| comfy armchair as the border force girl comes to check your
| documents.
|
| For some airports you don't have to pay for a separate extra
| service for this, flying first class with the right airline at
| the right airport will get you that. I'm trying to remember
| where I did this - I think it was Taipei. Wherever it was, I
| didn't have a black car, but a thing resembling a baggage cart
| that played Fur Elise to let people know I was coming. I don't
| think I would use the cart service again, but the checkin
| experience was nice.
| FredPret wrote:
| I also want to take the Fur Elise taxi when I fly from now on
| AMSthrow wrote:
| FYI, as travel volumes have begun to approach pre-pandemic
| levels - and travel chaos has exceeded them - Schiphol's VIP
| centre is no longer taking bookings from just any rando with
| money.
|
| You need to be an actual VIP to book them now, notwithstanding
| their reservations page. I know people who've used this
| facility hundreds of times over the last 3 years that no longer
| even get the courtesy of a negative response when trying to
| book. They simply don't reply anymore.
|
| I hesitate to mention it lest they too sink beneath the waves
| (or raise their prices) but https://www.schiphol.nl/en/at-
| schiphol/services/meet-and-ass... at least still provides real
| fast-past services through security and border controls for
| anyone willing to book and pay.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Meet & Assist Executive
|
| EUR200. Now we're talking!
| morsch wrote:
| 235, actually. Looks like they already raised prices.
| tpmx wrote:
| Still worth it. Unlike 2750 GBP + VAT.
| enlyth wrote:
| >relatively little money
|
| On what planet? It costs PS2750 plus VAT, sometimes I think I
| live in a different universe than HN posters
| prvit wrote:
| People making more than $300k/yr TC aren't exactly a small
| minority on HN. While the VIP service at Heathrow is
| unusually expensive compared to other airports, it's really
| not a crazy price to avoid some very stressful hours.
| ulber wrote:
| As a crude point of comparison, you'd be buying this
| service at about 917 euros/hour. With a pretty lax 1600
| hours/year you'd have to make almost 1.5M per year to match
| the rate.
| enlyth wrote:
| Even if you're on 300k a year, that's still 1/4th of your
| monthly salary to stay in a fancy lounge for two hours and
| avoid a shuttle bus
| pcurve wrote:
| Yeah...I can see spending 275 pounds if I were REALLY
| desperate.
|
| 2750 pound? Maybe if you made $3 million a year.
| [deleted]
| cranekam wrote:
| I flew out of LHR a couple of weeks ago. The security lines
| were longer than I have ever seen (took ~45m to an hour
| total, but I forgot some sunblock in my bag and had to wait
| quite a while for them to search it) but it was hardly
| stressful. I suppose if you're tight on time and cut things
| fine this could become a worry but that's avoidable by
| getting there a bit earlier. The airport staff were pretty
| good about checking for people on flights that were going
| to close soon, too. For me spending PS2750 + VAT to avoid
| this is absolutely crazy (it's 5 years' worth of laptops)
| but perhaps I don't value my time as much as others here.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| I flew out last week, took 20 minutes. They are clearly
| understaffed, but it was smooth. My entire holiday cost
| PS600 so not planning on taking up that offer anytime
| soon :P
| jjulius wrote:
| >People making more than $300k/yr TC aren't exactly a small
| minority on HN. ... it's really not a crazy price...
|
| Heathrow doesn't serve only HN users, nor only the wealthy,
| though. I'd wager that PS2750 plus VAT is hardly
| "relatively little money" for the average person traveling
| through Heathrow.
| prvit wrote:
| This isn't the "average person traveling through
| Heathrow" forum. This is a forum run by a big VC fund for
| startup billionaires and temporarily embarrassed startup
| billionaires.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| I make more than that and still think this isn't worth it.
| I understand flying business on a long haul but you're not
| exactly saving on traffic, etc. using this service.
| lordnacho wrote:
| That's still a month's rent for a lot of people, why would
| you spend that on a lounge for a few hours?
|
| I think most people would balk at the price. If it was 30
| quid it would be reasonable.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| 30 quid was what I was imagining when I read "relatively
| little money"
| jltsiren wrote:
| In my experience, flying from/to Heathrow is no more
| stressful than the average day at work. If I made something
| crazy like $10M/year, I might consider paying those fees.
| As long as my compensation is at the level of mere mortals,
| my time is not worth even remotely that much.
| ghaff wrote:
| My experience with Heathrow which is considerable
| (although not recently) is that other than a _lot_ of
| walking--which is fine if you 're able-bodied and your
| carry-on is reasonable is OK--it's mostly OK. Especially
| as a US citizen who was latterly able to use the
| electronic entry lanes.
| zhte415 wrote:
| From the heathrowvip.com FAQ:
|
| > Prices for the Black service start at GBP PS2,750 + VAT for
| up to 3 persons for an arriving or departing flight, as well as
| those on flights connecting within 3 hours.
|
| For perspective, LHR-JFK is around PS500 return including taxes
| for one adult in economy, or PS850 for premium economy.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| For perspective, if you're not flying first class, this
| probably isn't something you consider value for money.
| shapefrog wrote:
| Don't you just get out of the car and walk up the stairs and
| tell the pilot you are ready to go?
|
| Protip: have your staff book a car for your luggage, saves
| having to wait for someone to unload your luggage from the
| plane, you can just get into the waiting car on the tarmac and
| go.
|
| Super protip: have your luggage shipped ahead and unpacked in
| advance of your arrival.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Protip: be rich.
| corrral wrote:
| > the border force girl
|
| Is this phenomenon a psychology trick? Most folks doing bad
| stuff are guys, so have a hot young woman ask the questions to
| throw them off and make it harder to lie?
|
| I've wondered whether it's a deliberate tactic employed by some
| border controls since I stepped off a plane in Canada and saw
| that every single one of the half-dozen folks doing our "what
| are you doing in Canada?" Q&A stuff was a very attractive, put-
| together young woman. Like, that's a hell of a coincidence if
| it's not intentional.
| FredPret wrote:
| Welcome to Canada!
| prvit wrote:
| Oh, I've never been asked questions at the VIP terminal. Just
| a quick look at my passport and they tell me I'm good to go.
|
| Regular LHR border control on the other hand used to quiz me
| all the time. What are you doing? Where are you staying? Who
| pays for your travel? What do you do for a living?
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, LHR immigration has some intense questioning. I have
| been to a lot of countries, and they leave the impression
| as most invasive. (The rest of Europe is very pleasant.
| Hong Kong was my favorite; I felt like they gave 0 fucks
| about who comes into their territory. I've also been yelled
| at in Japan because I filled out some form in blue ink
| instead of black ink. The immigration agent gave me a long
| lecture about how "I know you can read Japanese because you
| had a student visa, what part of black ink didn't you
| understand?" I said I didn't have a black pen, and they
| didn't have any around. That seemed to be good enough of an
| answer. I guess the strategy is to rile people up so they
| say something dumb, but I guess I had nothing to hide
| except my taste in pens. And I suppose they want to test
| that I'm who I say I am; I should be able to answer that
| question in Japanese if I am who my passport says I am,
| though gotta admit this was about 10 years after that and I
| was pretty rusty! The mind games are pretty transparent,
| though tedious after an 18 hour flight.)
|
| US immigration is also very invasive, but I have Global
| Entry now and haven't spoken to immigration in years. Love
| it. (Customs, yeah they'll still ask you questions.
| Immigration questions upon arrival to the US always annoy
| me because I feel like I have a right to exist in my
| country of birth and citizenship. If I have the wrong
| answer to some question, where are they going to deport me
| to? The US? But, I don't feel like I have any right to
| bring in goods from abroad without paying taxes, so if
| people ask me those kinds of questions, it doesn't bother
| me.)
| corrral wrote:
| Oh, I meant at regular border control, I'm not rich enough
| to spend money on VIP services and not feel terrible (that
| is, like I _really_ should have done something else with
| that money) about doing so.
| tpmx wrote:
| This is some next-gen level bait. Gotta admire it.
| throw93232 wrote:
| Why bait? Heathrow has terrible service and 400 pounds may be
| worth it to get normal service. It is something like bakshis
| in Egypt... It pays off after couple of hours.
| tpmx wrote:
| "PS2750 plus VAT"
| mouzogu wrote:
| Pro protip: take your private jet
| prvit wrote:
| Well yeah, but the prices for those have actually more than
| doubled in the post-COVID world. Makes more sense for
| bigger groups, but hard to justify for many individuals
| who'd have previously flown private.
| [deleted]
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > Prices for the Black service start at GBP PS2,750 + VAT for
| up to 3 persons for an arriving or departing flight, as well as
| those on flights connecting within 3 hours.
|
| Kind of pricy, source: https://www.heathrowvip.com/s/faqs
| pcurve wrote:
| yeah and "The service is not available to those flying
| Economy or Premium Economy class"
| [deleted]
| astura wrote:
| By "relatively little money" you mean triple the cost of the
| ticket...
|
| So just like the Tom Brady method of avoiding sexual
| harassment[1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/PxuUkYiaUc8
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Protip: Just be rich
| pdx_flyer wrote:
| It's a mess out there. Barcelona/Frankfurt/Munich are still solid
| options for connections into Europe but
| Amsterdam/Dublin/London/Paris are not great.
|
| A friend of mine had to fight to get his bag in Dublin. His
| AirTags showed that his bag was in the baggage claim area and led
| him to a room where they were storing bags. He pointed it out and
| said, "that's mine" but was told he couldn't get it. After quite
| a bit of arguing he finally just walked over and took it.
| WildGreenLeave wrote:
| I flew from AMS to SFO on the 24th of June, I flew back to
| Schiphol today (12th of juli) and to be honest. It was a
| breeze. Didn't have to wait for my luggage when picking it up.
| Dropping it off was a bit of a hassle but all in all it took me
| 1.5 hours. I had longer waits at Schiphol pre and during covid
| to be honest.
|
| Of course this is just N = 2, so YMMV. But for me, I have the
| feeling that Schiphol is doing quite well with the amount of
| people.
|
| Edit; I have to admit that on the way back I spent 15 minutes
| talking to the pilots and admiring the cockpit. That is
| probably the reason why I didn't have to wait. But even if you
| include those 15 minutes it really isn't much.
| pdx_flyer wrote:
| Glad it was smooth for you. Are they still doing the line
| down the outside of the terminal to check people in or have
| the reduction in flights kept that from being needed?
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Frankfurt is absolute warzone and worst of them all, avoid it
| at any cost this summer. A week ago there were more heavily
| armed police telling people to leave the airport and find a
| hotel than workers.
| pdx_flyer wrote:
| Interesting, my trip through there a few weeks ago was smooth
| and the crowds were minimal (US to Europe connecting in FRA).
| TillE wrote:
| Yeah my experiences at Frankfurt have been poor. And it's a
| psychotic German cop thing that basically any kind of
| "special" deployment means they're all toting submachine
| guns, even if there's zero notion of an increased threat of
| violence. A deeply bizarre practice.
| drcongo wrote:
| colinb wrote:
| I'll bite. How is this to do with Brexit? My local airport is
| not in Britain but has been a shit-show for months. My
| understanding is that this is true for several major European
| airports. Can I blame that on Brexit too?
| cr1895 wrote:
| Very plausible that people from other EU countries who worked
| in airports left, and it's a reduced pool of people willing
| and able to take on those jobs today because of Brexit.
|
| So it clearly isn't the cause of airport chaos, but it can't
| be helpful.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Apparently they don't have enough staff.
|
| *at their current price point
| pluc wrote:
| Tell me the EUR is too low to do any good without telling me the
| EUR is too low to do any good
|
| Edit: Y'all really think they would have limited flights in
| touristic high season if the Euro was what it was 2-3 years ago?
| Please!
| dageshi wrote:
| What does the euro have to do with anything?
| pluc wrote:
| Europeans don't go spend their money in Britain because their
| currency's value doesn't make it worth it; therefore it's not
| worth to have many flights to accommodate them
| shaicoleman wrote:
| In Ireland, the minimum wage is EUR10.50 per hour and the
| standard work week is 40 hours, that works out to EUR420 full
| time minimum wage per week.
|
| At Dublin Airport, security staff are only guaranteed 20 hours
| per week, need to be available for 40 hours per week, and entry
| level workers are paid EUR14.14 per hour.
|
| Guaranteed pay: EUR282.80 per week, i.e. 67% of the minimum wage.
|
| Are there any surprises why there are staff shortages?
|
| 1. https://extra.ie/2022/03/31/news/daa-taoiseach-criticised-
| du...
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > Are there any surprises why there are staff shortages?
|
| Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how
| Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts for
| security, could possibly create shortages of staff at Heathrow?
|
| In any case, the number of security staff at Heathrow isn't the
| bottleneck. From the article: "by the end of July, we will have
| as many people working in security as we had pre-pandemic".
| kingofpandora wrote:
| > Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how
| Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts
| for security, could possibly create shortages of staff at
| Heathrow?
|
| Of course the poster is not saying Dublin airport's wages
| affect staffing at Heathrow. But I think you know that.
|
| What is happening is something called a comparison or perhaps
| an analogy. We are being presented with another airport with
| staffing shortages and then presented with a cause which
| possibly applies to the airport in question. But I think you
| know this, too.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| It would be a reasonable analogy if the point made (low
| hourly pay combined with lack of guaranteed hours) applied
| to Heathrow, but it doesn't appear that it does[0]:
|
| * The starting salary for Security Officers at Heathrow is
| 28% above the UK's minimum wage (12.13/hour vs 9.50/hour).
|
| * They employ people as either full time (40 hours/week) or
| part time (20 hours/week). For the latter, there are two
| shift patterns available, but they don't seem to vary week
| by week.
|
| [0] - https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateEx
| perienc...
| kingofpandora wrote:
| I didn't say it was a good analogy (I have no idea), and
| you are free to pick holes in it.
|
| But the intent was clear.
| shaicoleman wrote:
| From the article: "There are some critical functions in
| the airport which are still significantly under
| resourced, in particular ground handlers, who are
| contracted by airlines to provide check-in staff, load
| and unload bags and turnaround aircraft."
|
| Sample of one, but this is the first result I got:
|
| A baggage handler job in Heathrow earns PS11/hour for a
| contracted temporary hourly job that involves probably
| shifts, working through half the weekends, a long commute
| and dealing with abusive passengers.
|
| https://www.totaljobs.com/job/baggage-handler/buzz-
| recruitme...
|
| Perhaps different roles are affected, but I suspect
| Dublin and Heathrow have staff shortages for similar
| reasons.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| There seem to be at least two issues here:
|
| 1) pay and conditions relative to other options (which
| your example illustrates)
|
| 2) the system's inability to react quickly to changes in
| required throughput, because hiring and training takes at
| least a few weeks(?)
|
| I wonder what's the dominant reason for today's
| situation, when Heathrow worked fine before the pandemic?
|
| A) Potential workers have better options (or better
| information about options) than they did before the
| pandemic?
|
| B) The airport and airlines failed to forecast accurately
| enough?
|
| C) Some other type of 'bug' in the system of management?
|
| D) Something else?
| hourago wrote:
| Many people were working these jobs without realising what a
| bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic and
| learned that any other job is better.
|
| The only thing that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect
| knowledge. Most job seekers have a limited knowledge as only
| know their own past jobs and the ones from close people (and to
| talk about pay is quite taboo in many countries). And that is
| how we got here. Even when there is public information, many
| people have a hard time understanding the implications of the
| statistics and concrete job differences.
|
| Corporations have thousands of data points and share salary
| statistics between them.
|
| Staying at home and even firings have helped some people to
| gain that knowledge.
| acchow wrote:
| > Many people were working these jobs without realising what
| a bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic
| and learned that any other job is better. > The only thing
| that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect knowledge
|
| It's not just knowledge. Many of these jobs are _TIRING_ jobs
| because you are physically on your feet a lot. You just don
| 't have the energy to go looking for another job at the end
| of the day.
|
| The break COVID gave people was a huge boon to job mobility.
| willcipriano wrote:
| People also get old advice that no longer applies. "Stay with
| a job, arrive early, go the extra mile and they will reward
| you down the road!"
|
| In these sort of things, your direct manager probably doesn't
| even know what you make. There is a tight pay band set by HR
| and virtually no room for differentiation between employees.
| There is no mechanism in most roles to truly be rewarded for
| going the extra mile. The only surefire way to increase your
| takings is to be active in the employment marketplace and
| always looking for a better deal.
|
| Working for someone is like this old Seinfeld bit[0], if you
| want to be rewarded you have to get someone to agree to it
| before you do the work, once the project is delivered and
| they are satiated they won't be feeling as generous. "We
| don't need labor now why are we giving this guy a raise?"
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hk5turqgA
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Friend of mine sat in a meeting between the CEO, CFO, and
| their senior store manager while they argue whether to give
| an assistant manager a $0.35/hr raise or a $0.25/hr raise.
| For 45 minutes.
| willcipriano wrote:
| That's a $21 annual delta at 40 hours a week, I knew
| retail had thin margins but sheesh.
| waqf wrote:
| In my math it's a $210 annual delta.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Ahh you are right
| mistrial9 wrote:
| there is a power relationship between those people, and
| they are being paid quite well to engage privately. Of
| course it is obnoxious if you have any empathy at all --
| many employers remove empathy as "weak" .. they have key-
| word one liners between each other to signal about it.
| not fun
| ctvo wrote:
| > Many people were working these jobs without realising what
| a bad deal it was.
|
| Can you share some details on where you're getting this data?
| I'd like to dig into it more.
|
| Imperfect information certainly is a thing, but many public
| jobs have public wage information. Large corporate jobs also
| have public wage information (say a delivery driver or
| warehouse worker -- everyone knows what Amazon is paying for
| these positions). Claiming people stay in these jobs due to
| ignorance goes against my experience growing up poor, where
| my parents and their peers constantly hunted for better
| paying jobs.
|
| I don't know anything about Ireland, but a quick Google for
| "ireland jobs" leads me to https://ie.indeed.com/jobs-in-
| Ireland where I can clearly see wages and salaries for many
| positions.
| throw93232 wrote:
| Some friends I know returned to Poland and other countries.
| It does not make a sense to stay in ultra expensive Dublin,
| if there is no work during covid.
|
| When you were younger, it was worth it to work. Today basic
| wage often does not even cover rent and other living
| expenses. You loose money by working.
|
| To get some perspective go to www.daft.ie and try to find
| studion near airport...
| corrral wrote:
| I've known _lots_ of tech workers who went as much as years
| without realizing how badly they were being underpaid, even
| by the standards of their weak local market. It can take a
| surprising amount of pushing to get someone who thinks
| their current pay is OK to realize that it 's very much not
| --I think there's a certain amount of disbelief people tend
| to default to. "Well, those others must be more skilled, or
| got lucky". Nope, you're just getting fucked.
|
| And that's a segment of people who ought to be very good at
| using technology to find out that kind of stuff. I would be
| very surprised if this didn't hold for most other fields.
| I'd expect the only markets in which this kind of thing
| isn't common is ones that are _extremely_ comp-focused
| (finance, say, and maybe sales).
| ctvo wrote:
| > I've known lots of tech workers who went as much as
| years without realizing how badly they were being
| underpaid, even by the standards of their weak local
| market
|
| I agree that white collar jobs obfuscate salaries and
| that power dynamic overwhelmingly favors employers.
|
| That isn't the situation with lower paying jobs,
| especially ones that aren't salaried, which was what the
| OP was about. Those low skill jobs (I'd argue baggage
| handler making minimum wage at the airport to be in that
| category) openly list wages on the advertisement.
| Thinking those folks stay in their jobs due to the same
| information asymmetry is what I'm questioning.
| mabbo wrote:
| I feel employers should be forced to pay an extra tax,
| something like a dollar/euro per hour of work, for employees
| who are given less than 35 hours per week.
|
| And do the same for minimum wage: an extra dollar/euro per hour
| for weeks where the employee works less than 35 hours.
|
| I know there's some details to work out- vacation, employers
| forcing employees to say they don't want to work, and so on,
| but on the whole I think those could be smoothed out, and large
| employers wouldn't be able to get away with cheating it for
| long.
| [deleted]
| njarboe wrote:
| In the US are forced to pay more when they work over 30 hours
| a week. Over 30 hours and you are considered full time and
| the employer is required to pay for health care. The
| historical accident of having healthcare attached to your job
| due to war time wage freezes turns out to cause lots of
| problems when that cost becomes a double digit percent of
| your wage. Seems impossible to change and we seem to just
| keep forcing more companies to provide healthcare instead of
| breaking the link.
| supertrope wrote:
| Yeah. The actual cost of an employer group health plan is
| $7000 per year. If the employee has a family that's $20000
| per year. Usually the employer pays for 80% of this and the
| remaining 20% of the premium is paid by the employee.
| That's another $2-9/hr.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Be amusing to set the corporate and capital gains tax based
| on employee compensation. The less you pay you employees the
| higher the rate.
| ebiester wrote:
| Conceptually great idea, but I think setting the cap of top
| employee compensation as a multiplier of the lowest paid
| employee is a better start, as well as requiring full
| benefits for any employee rather than a minimum. (You will
| have to tweak other things, and make sure to crack down on
| wage theft for overtime, etc, but this will remove the
| disincentive to hiring full time.)
|
| It isn't so much that we want to discourage investment in
| food supply and other service sectors but rather to
| increase the living conditions of those working in them.
|
| It will mean increased labor costs, decreased stock market
| profits, and a bit of inflation. I argue that for humane
| labor practices, this is an acceptable compromise for a
| civilized society.
| rtkwe wrote:
| > guaranteed 20 hours per week, need to be available for 40
| hours per week
|
| This I think is part of the huge problem with modern "low
| level"/minimum wage jobs. Companies don't pay enough to live of
| of one salary but expect to have full say over their employees
| time just for their own convenience in scheduling and staffing.
| verisimilitude wrote:
| God, this is such a good point. This gap between scheduled
| hours (~20) versus expected dictation of 'available' hours
| (~40) is one of the things powering the obnoxious "side
| hustle" idea...
| nerdponx wrote:
| You should be paid for those extra 20 on-call hours.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| Wait till you dig into companies forcing non-competes on non-
| full time staff like this. Jimmy Johns didn't let their
| minimum wage sandwich cooks work at other fast food places.
| So not only are you not getting full time hours, you aren't
| getting health coverage, and have to find a job outside of
| QSR (quick serve restaurants) to make ends meet.
| vanattab wrote:
| There is no way this is enforced though.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's a convenient cause to point to if they're being
| annoying about scheduling though and the threat of even a
| nonenforcable contract clause will stop most people, who
| can afford to fight it just to go back to a job where
| they'll make up another reason to fire you later anyways,
| assuming you're in a reasonable state that even forces
| them to do that.
| vanattab wrote:
| I am not justifying Non-Competes for food service jobs, I
| am merely pointing out to anyone that might be in that
| position not to fear taking another job.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I would be curious if it were even enforceable under
| labour law.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The issue with such problematic clauses is that even
| though they might not be enforceable, some fraction of
| people who sign them will stick to them, to their own
| detriment.
|
| What's needed is some kind of harsh punishment for
| including unenforceable contract clauses, coupled with
| awareness from the side of the employee.
| mehlmao wrote:
| The last few noncompetes I've been presented with have
| clauses saying that if any part of the noncompete is
| found to be illegal, the rest still stands. I
| wholeheartedly believe that if a noncompete contains
| elements that are illegal at the time of signing, the
| entire document should be void and the entity presenting
| it should owe damages.
| lozenge wrote:
| That's standard wording in any contract, and in most
| cases it holds. However, the issue is who is going to
| present the case for the low wage worker who's lost say
| $200 in illegal deductions. There is no part of society
| that will reliably perform that role. By design of
| course.
| elliekelly wrote:
| When I worked in consulting we had a large retail client who
| had a lot of turn-over and was looking for ways to
| "stabilize" hiring. (Short of paying more money, of course!)
| When we looked into it their system was regularly over-
| scheduling shifts "just in case" there was a rush and then
| having store managers "cut" shifts if there wasn't a rush.
| There aren't a lot of surprise "rush" shifts in shopping
| malls outside of the holiday season so sometimes employees
| would come in, work an hour of a scheduled eight hour shift,
| and then get cut. The cuts tended to happen by "seniority"
| (so newest hires, paid the least) and a decent number of
| these employees who were frequently cut were traveling at
| least an hour by public transportation. Some days employees
| _lost money_ by going to work.
|
| We were thrilled by what we'd found! It would be a quick and
| easy fix for the client: they had solid and reliable sales
| forecasts for each location so estimating the number of
| employees they'd need on a given day wasn't going to be
| difficult. In fact, they were more or less already doing it.
| It would hardly cost them anything to implement aside from a
| few tweaks to the corporate scheduling tool and a bit of
| training for the store managers. So when management
| immediately shot down our proposed solution it came as a bit
| of shock. The erratic scheduling and the "cut" shifts were a
| feature, not a bug, we were told. It kept employees from
| getting a second job that they might dare prioritize over
| their current job.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > The erratic scheduling and the "cut" shifts were a
| feature, not a bug, we were told. It kept employees from
| getting a second job that they might dare prioritize over
| their current job.
|
| I always suspected that this was the reason for abusive
| retail scheduling. Thanks for confirming my suspicion. This
| should be illegal.
| bbarnett wrote:
| In Ontaro, minimum pay is 3 hours, for just this reason.
|
| http://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-
| standar...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| except for students! But transportation is federally
| regulated, so rules for airports would be different.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Yes, but to be clear, that's under 18... just in case
| someone thought university students...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Looks like the exception for students is no longer a
| thing:
|
| > As of January 1, 2019 the three-hour rule applies to
| students (including students over 18 years of age except
| if the student works:
|
| > at a children's camp, unless the student is also a
| wilderness guide > providing instruction to or
| supervising children, unless the student is also a
| wilderness guide > in a recreational program run by a
| charity, unless the student is also a wilderness guide.
|
| I can't tell why wilderness guides in particular are so
| special
| datavirtue wrote:
| The entire service industry is based on this manipulation.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _large retail client who had a lot of turn-over and was
| looking for ways to "stabilize" hiring_
|
| > _It kept employees from getting a second job that they
| might dare prioritize over their current job._
|
| I mean, clearly it fucking didn't.
| [deleted]
| cafard wrote:
| Wow.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| This is the reality now for many working class people in
| the US, and has been for some time. They end up working
| two part time jobs with constant scheduling conflicts,
| and god help you if you have childcare needs as well.
| It's very consciously and deliberately designed to
| minimize both employee costs and their bargaining power.
| I mean we have freaking companies demanding non compete
| agreements to work in fast food.
|
| But god forbid you raise the point that perhaps we need a
| political shift that removes some power from corporations
| and restores it to labor, you get painted as socialized
| nazi commie scum or whatever. It's so insane and
| frustrating just how good a lock these businesses have on
| the situation (Don't even get me started on Walmart et
| all).
| weaksauce wrote:
| > But god forbid you raise the point that perhaps we need
| a political shift that removes some power from
| corporations and restores it to labor, you get painted as
| socialized nazi commie scum or whatever. It's so insane
| and frustrating just how good a lock these businesses
| have on the situation (Don't even get me started on
| Walmart et all).
|
| To rational people this should be a no brainer. turns out
| a lot of people are not rational. the current system is
| not tenable in my opinion.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The comment is absolutely correct. Small, locally owned,
| franchises, and family businesses do it too. Back in 2015
| or 2016, I sat at a lunch with the leaders of a business
| advocacy organization, and they were livid that Obama
| raised the statutory minimum salary to $45k or whatever
| it was, and how they could no longer pay an immigrant
| "manager" to work 80+ hour weeks for $31k.
|
| The kicker? They were children of immigrants that did the
| same, except their parents were lucky to have immigrated
| back when buying a business/land was much cheaper. Land
| prices are now far higher for the newer immigrants to
| ever be able to save enough to get in on the ownership
| side of the business.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's the kind of bullshit people got shot fighting against
| 100 years ago then we've slowly slid back over time to a
| different but still quite shitty place for workers. The
| labor movement in the US has unfortunately been neutered
| over time, maybe it'll make a come back now that it's
| becoming a bit more clear the US's fortune in the later
| 20th century might be more down to coming out of WW2
| untouched rather than the glory and perfection of the US
| system.
| turns0ut wrote:
| FredPret wrote:
| Lordy. They deserve their problems.
| turns0ut wrote:
| lozenge wrote:
| It's especially egregious for an airport who know just how
| many flights take off and land and how many passengers
| they'll have weeks in advance.
| cersa8 wrote:
| Wow, that really brought home how fortunate I and probably many
| others on HN are.
| haunter wrote:
| Why have the September 11 got edited out from the title? That's
| how I saw original submission
| calebegg wrote:
| I find it truly baffling how articles nowadays have three
| headlines: the one in the URL, the one in the page title (shown
| by the browser) and the actual one on the page:
|
| > heathrow-tells-all-airlines-to-stop-selling-any-flights-
| until-11th-september
|
| > Heathrow tells BA (and other airlines) to stop selling
| tickets for the Summer period
|
| > SOLD OUT: Heathrow tells all airlines to stop selling ANY
| flights until 11th September
|
| Isn't that just much more work for so little "benefit" (SEO?)
|
| Anyway, now none of them match the title on HN, so I have no
| answer to your question.
| CarrieLab wrote:
| Think this just shows you truly important SEO is (to media
| companies). It's probably easily worth the trouble for them
| if there are SEO gains.
| mnd999 wrote:
| Just ban leave voters from the airport. They don't like Europe
| anyway. Simple.
| gpt5 wrote:
| Howeverthe EU does have 1GB of extra space for them.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Earlier it was Schiphol, now Heathrow... I wonder why there's
| such an issue with airports.
|
| Of course the direct answer is "inadequate staff" but the next
| question is why is that so much more now? Why aren't the airports
| doing more to entice workers like perhaps better benefits, pay or
| flexibility? Are airports already operating at thin margins? (If
| anyone from the aero industry could comment that would be great!)
| Did they overestimate the downturn due to covid? Are traffic
| volumes legitimately larger than what was expected/predicted in
| 2022 (even ignoring covid's drop)?
| mprovost wrote:
| Aside from the issues that others have mentioned (Brexit,
| security clearances), the UK is in the middle of a huge BA.5
| Covid wave. Estimates are something around 1 in 25 people had
| it last week, and it's getting worse. That's driving a lot of
| staff absences.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Of course the direct answer is "inadequate staff" but the
| next question is why is that so much more now?
|
| Simple: here in Germany, all workers at airports authorized to
| enter controlled zones have to pass an extensive background
| check, a process that takes 3-4 months under _normal_
| conditions [1]. During COVID, a lot of these workers were laid
| off instead of being placed under the employment protection
| program or left entirely since the Kurzarbeit only paid out 60%
| of already extremely low wages (14EUR /h for baggage handlers,
| [0]). They found other employment and won't come back - to make
| it worse, airports are usually well outside the city borders,
| so there's an awful lot of commute involved at a time when
| public transport doesn't run as well.
|
| > Why aren't the airports doing more to entice workers like
| perhaps better benefits, pay or flexibility?
|
| There has been a continuous pressure on costs everywhere at
| airports, which means the airports themselves have not much
| flexibility on raising fees to account for increased costs, and
| the companies providing the services like baggage handling,
| refueling and whatever usually won their contracts by tender
| which means they are locked in as well by law.
|
| [0] https://de.talent.com/salary?job=flughafen
|
| [1] https://www.luftsicherheitsschulung-online.de/faq-
| beantragun...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > an extensive background check, a process that takes 3-4
| months under normal conditions
|
| Makes me wonder how many minutes of actual investigation take
| place in those months.
|
| Seems like there was serious opportunity for process
| improvement all along that was never done, and now things
| went from bad to worse.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The checks are _extensive_ - almost every relevant database
| the government has on you [1]. They can also oder medical
| exams to check if you 've been using drugs if they find any
| indication of _any_ usage in the past in the data. It 's
| absurd, utterly absurd.
|
| [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/luftsig/__7.html
| hocuspocus wrote:
| > There has been a continuous pressure on costs everywhere at
| airports, which means the airports themselves have not much
| flexibility on raising fees to account for increased costs,
| and the companies providing the services like baggage
| handling, refueling and whatever usually won their contracts
| by tender which means they are locked in as well by law.
|
| Our governments (that all signed the Paris agreement) should
| be happy and seize the opportunity to let airports raise
| taxes, let service providers renegotiate and pay their staff
| more, and make low cost flights a little less cheap.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > let service providers renegotiate and pay their staff
| more
|
| That is impossible, they cannot raise the agreed-upon rates
| without terminating the contract and holding a fully new
| tender process. Contract termination would require
| agreement of _both_ parties, but no vendor would ever agree
| to the termination of a contract if they could not be sure
| to win the new tender.
| Rompect wrote:
| > Wie viel verdient man als Flughafen in Deutschland?
|
| This literally means "how much do you earn as an airport in
| Germany". The answer is 2194EUR. Made me laugh.
| nradov wrote:
| I flew out of Schipol yesterday. Everything was fine at the KLM
| check in counter and gate, and at passport control. But they
| were short of security screening staff and it took an hour to
| get through the line.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| You realize there's a worldwide pandemic going on that's
| causing people to be sick for days and weeks at a time,
| repeatedly, right? And that nearly all airports and airlines
| have given up the most basic mitigations like mask wearing
| mandates to prevent spread.
| cycomanic wrote:
| What I heard (and there is a lot on conjecture involved) is
| that lots of staff were layed off or put on part time during
| covid. Now travel levels are coming up to precovid times and
| much previous staff has moved on. On the other hand, the
| airports are not really offering significantly increased
| salaries. In general it seems that there is strong reluctance
| to adjust salaries for workers despite the increased demand.
| pbuzbee wrote:
| Seems like we're seeing this pattern across the board in the
| economy: shortages of labor, and salaries aren't increasing
| enough to lure people in. Are employers unable to raise
| salaries, or are they unwilling? If they are unable, where
| does this leave us if no one can afford the price of labor?
| If they are unwilling, is this just a game of chicken to see
| who blinks first between employees and employers?
| selimnairb wrote:
| I think part of what we are seeing is the beginning of a
| large number of Baby Boomers retiring, causing worker
| shortages across the economy.
| badwolf wrote:
| Also take into account many people got laid
| off/furloughed/etc... during the Pandemic, and have since
| found a new, probably better job. Why go back to making a
| pittance for a stressful, heavy workload?
| christkv wrote:
| I suspect the airports have limited ability to pass along
| the increased cost to the airlines.
| not2b wrote:
| Ah, but we are still "during covid", though people are
| traveling again, meaning that the number of pilots and staff
| who are out sick is significantly higher than pre-covid
| times. That's a major factor causing flight cancellations in
| the US, not sure abut Europe.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Covid meant that they got rid of people
|
| When travel picked back up they tried to employ people. They
| failed because
|
| 1) Brexit -- many people who were laid off in the UK returned
| to their country of origin
|
| 2) Security clearance -- there is a massive backlog getting
| security clearance (for things like airside passes) in the UK
|
| BA ground crew were recently on strike because they're being
| paid less than they were in 2019 for the same job (which was
| already a low wage), even before inflation. There's better jobs
| to go to with better hours and better conditions.
|
| I suspect BA and co are hoping to get some form of P&O style
| deal where they can employ people who aren't UK citizens in the
| airports on a low wage that someone with full access to the
| labour market wouldn't take.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| The job roles involved (security staff, baggage handlers, cabin
| crew) often have poor pay and undesirable working arrangements
| (e.g. unsociable hours).
|
| The current high level of employment means people are able to
| choose to not do that kind of undesirable work.
|
| When Airports and Airlines do manage to find staff to fill the
| jobs, they have to go through a government background check
| process for security reasons. That process has a huge backlog
| at the moment.
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